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Think the dunlop rims suit the car well and deffinatly a good period alternative in our eyes, does anybody know if they where offered as an option?

SURPRISE!


V4 had replaced the original unit, hence the strange bonnet bulge and 2 litre badging, think this ones due a service though?


suspension and front chassis / frame section in much the same state but will be salvaged where possible.


Battery tray and general grime


this pic through the rear window hints to what was found during the stripdown, oh dear.

Right then, this will be our last upload for tonight, its getting a bit late but feel free to add any comments or observations, or indeed any words of encouragement will be greafully recieved.

i will try and get some pics of the stripdown and our findings on tomo if i get chance, if not sometime soon.

we are currently on the rebuild stage so will be looking into options for running gear etc. before long.

It's taken a little time to get to the rebuild stage, its a hobby we share all done in Marks garage as and when time permits, usually 1 or maybe 2 nights a week but this is 1 month on / 1 month off due to work patterns with the odd saturday morning, so considering we spend perhaps 50 - 60 evenings a year we are quite pleased with progress. i will get some more recent pics up soon, but heres some more for now.

GRP seat backs and bases will be cleaned up and re-used


Not sure same can be said for the seats themselves, did sombody mention leather? smells better than GRP / and resin!

Handbrake and floor with carpet removed, looks pretty good in the pics


well first pic showing the start of the major stripdown, engine and box gone, heavier than first thought aswell, phew!




off to bed now, far too late!

cheers,
Rick.

Hi Richard,

hopefully get some of the early chassis pics on soon, thats where the real head scratching starts

Bottom mounting point for the front end, these are a little past it so probably be fabricated and replaced during rebuild.

looking down transmission tunnel from engine bay, prop and axle still in place at this time.


Engine and Box, may be up for grabs at some point?


Starting to get somewhere now, front end is dropped off, on the face of it should be able to salvage the main components.

We have many photos of the chassis but will just post up a selection to give you an idea as to the state.

if anybody wants pictures of a particular area then just shout up as we probably have them or can get them.

I like this picture, it makes it look pretty good, unfortunatly a finger could be pushed through most of the thin stuff with ease, the dash, engine bay and two main sections that run front to back either side of the transmission tunnel had a bit of strength in them still.





Boot area

looking from rear wheelarch into cabin

Sill on driver side, or whats left of it!




Nice section through sill, will be a challenge to replicate




Rear suspention mounting is a bit past it but will be used to fabricate new items, cant help but think it looks a flimsy design?

Matching Pair!, the original chassis sections are much thicker by laminating additional sections to each side, this will come later.

As im sure is obvious from the pictures so far, repair was not really an option so we decided a head on approch was required to build a complete new chassis from scratch. We have some very basic woodwork experience but this would be a good learning curve and a challenge, it would be very much research and measure twice before jumping in though.

Set about mapping the floorpan out, this took a long time to get measurements we where happy with, shown here in mock up only.






Footwell sections are solid, after much reasearch and dilleberation we decided this was the way we wanted to go, if we decided to go with the wadding type stuffing instead at anypoint, we could router out as required. Its all early stages here with no bonding involved yet. We spent many hours getting all peices to fit perfectly, neatly and simetrically. lots of sanding and measuring but it all went fairly smoothly up to here.






The next step involved making a good flat and level bench to work from during the assembly. I will post more towards the end of the week to bring everything up-to-date, pictures still on the camera at the moment.

Richard

If it can be saved with the odd local repair that would be good, this was our original hope early on, i think ours actually looks better in the photos than it was, although a lot of the thicker pieces hadnt flaked away like the thinner stuff, it had surrered with soft areas and delaminating, particulary in the engine compartment where it had been butchered, and cracks around the back end.

We had talked about the same sort of idea for local repairs, like you say where a layer could be routered away, each time slightly bigger than the area below, then new material, each overlapping would be bonded in. i think this will be slightly more difficult with the sill due to the thickness of the material and the curved shape, although im sure it could be achieved.

Depending on the size of the area to be repaired, perhaps the area could be cut away and then a large new skin section bonded to the inside face of the sill (if you can get in to it), from that the technique described above? some experimentation may be in order, good luck!

We did wonder on the original material too however we uncovered a section with the label still on! if you back track a little we have taken a picture, the label reads 'INSECT PROOF' 'EXTERIOR PLYWOOD' although i will try and post up some more info. on exact materials we used.

Good call on the fixings, we too intend to use stainless or suitably coated fixings throughout, although you have to be a bit carefull with stainless as the properties do not lend well to some stressed applications, it can weaken over time and fail.

with regards trading parts, if you can find us a reasonably priced Superduty engine for a '74 SD455 Firebird Trans Am then we may be able to deal, should be easy that Haha!

Regards,
Rick.

Cheers guys some good info. coming through there.

We have done a fair amount of information digging to get to the stage we are at and Michaels site at wooden wonders was inspirational in the sence we could see it was possible to make from scratch (there was hope!!!). Must admit this site http://www.marcos-cc.de/ownerrr.htm we must have missed, some good detail there.

Interesting to note the different designs, i.e. the pictures on the site above seem to be for a volvo engined car, this chassis has a number of differences, notably the squared off sill design and taller transmission tunnel, similar to the chassis in the pictures on the wooden wonders website.

Our car has a radiused sill design, like the one seen in this excellent restoration http://home.datacomm.ch/adrianmueller/index.html our chassis is pretty much identical to this.

CF Mantula,
Thanks for the info. on the Webasto, no doudt i will be in touch at some point so thanks for that.

Cheers again for the info. guys, its all appreciated,
Rick.